iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

i see various people doing the “post a picture of someone looking stylish in/next to a car” thing. i could do that, yeah. but instead here’s a picture of me looking stylish AS a car—last year’s cosplay as bessie, which i didn’t actually pull together in time to wear.

i’m taking a selfie in a full-length mirror, wearing a yellow t-shirt and yellow joggers, a black top hat with two round flat lightbulbs stuck to the brim, an antique “honk honk” brass horn stuck through my belt bag, and a mini british-style license plate reading WHO 1. there is a flat red button on my belly with the label “super drive” inked onto the shirt around it. i am holding a steering wheel.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

scenes from one of the most enchanted places in chicagolandia.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

go-to response for queries about my experiences of physical transition

cropped shot of text from a bag of frozen raviloi: “new shape with more cheesy filling”.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

also noteworthy, this delicious mural:

full-wall mural in a “fantasy novel cover”-illustration style, depicting a sand-colored dragon and a rabbit in worn traveler’s garb (blue tunic, pinkish or faded red hooded cloak) seated by a campfire in a rocky grotto. further observation reveals that the dragon is companionably keeping the fire stoked by breathing through the nostrils. the rabbit toasts a carrot on a stick over the bright flames.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

found a large clump of volunteer zinnias in a vacant lot i love. here you go.

scowling to focus on the timer countdown on my front camera, i stand against the grimy stone wall of an overpass abutment and proffer a bouquet of vibrant red, orange and pink zinnias. i am covered in bags, badges and camera, wearing my denim newsboy cap.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“Obviously Hookland is influenced by DOCTOR WHO.” oh, definitely. some evidence of my perhaps permanent enchantment @hookland.bsky.social—thanks for the blackwells suggestion!

a rather odd but personable photo of an odd but personable fellow with tattoos, graying funny hair (mostly shaved head! sticky-up stuff on top!) goatee & dark-framed glasses, cradling a copy of david southwell’s HOOKLAND FRAGMENTS vol. 1 against knees covered in checked pajama bottoms. a painting on paper hangs on the wall above/behind them. ladders feature heavily in the mostly abstract painting.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

sonny decided to do some edits in the project i currently have open. i’m tempted to leave them. 🐈⌨️

screenshot of a word processing file page with “1q
CV
f”

scattered across the white space. a cursor waits at the immediate right of the letter f.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

geez, the vorta are out to ruin everybody’s fun, aren’t they? #ST:DS9

municipal red-on-white “parking”-style sign reads “PROMENADE CLOSES AT 11:00 P.M.”

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

yes, i needed this reminder. maybe you do too.💚

a white-painted concrete railing post with a cable rail coated in light blue plastic on a concrete pier. the post has a hand-lettered sticker reading “YOU HAVE FRIENDS EVERYWHERE”. the low rainclouds glower overhead.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

percentage of poets of a certain age™️ who still have their original copies of poky little puppy…?

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

dried marigold & cockscomb blooms in a bamboo bowl, after harvesting cockscomb seeds. pretty sure the marigolds will seed themselves plenty in the bed, but i hadn’t grown cockscombs before. they make loads of seed too!

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

ooooo i’m going to need one so i will add my own forearm to the effort…

fresh tattoo of two “kissing” kelpies in black ink

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

sonny wishes you a happy birthday—he’s dreaming of your perfect day, as you can see. however, he is unwilling to share r.’s legs with anyone else (even r.).

a very asleep tuxedo tabby with his front half clutching one of the legs of a white man on a bed, and his back half belly up, rear legs relaxed with feet pointing up, tail against the human’s other leg.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

there are reasons why i insist that poetry writing is a very physically intensive activity. also why cats have tended to play actively collaborative roles in this work.

i’m sitting on the floor wearing big black headphones and a blue utility vest, leaning into frame from the midst of a roll of paper spread on the floor, on which a mess of sticky notes is in the process of being arranged into poems. a spiral notebook and fountain pen are also sitting on the roll of paper. cat toys and a big electric fan can be seen around me.

a pink square cushion and the roll of paper with sticky notes and notebook, from above.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

i also got two single science fiction titles, which seemed to be especially poetic & offbeat. this is the one i’m most intrigued by: BLAKE’S PROGRESS (not *that* blake—the poet one), positing that william blake was a time-traveler.

r.f. nelson’s BLAKE’S PROGRESS showing a pastiche of blakeian imagery with sci-fi elements—destroyed & intact futuristic cities, and a portrait of blake himself, ostensibly: a scowling white guy with piercing blue eyes and curly brown hair.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

my printer’s row haul was modest: a few political volumes, some vintage science fiction. i chose only two ace doubles, including this one with an irresistible cover.

vintage pulp paperback cover of one side of an ace double novel. this one is THE COILS OF TIME by a. bertram chandler. it shows a red humanoid robot being engulfed by a yellow goo that may also be a plant or something like a stalactite in a cavern. the tagline reads, “the world that could not be.”

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

i joked that i “puppeteered” the boat when we launched her & put her back on the trailer, because i held lines at bow & stern, moving my body so i could move the boat onto & off the trailer. physics! here’s r. looking intrepid, & me, looking…comfy.

in a boat launch ramp lane before i tied her off for boarding.

r. in the stern at the tiller—the long “handle” that controls the rudder. some of the harbor and skyline are visible behind him. he wasn’t posing, just concentrating.

me, in my san francisco mime troupe cap. behind me part of the old meigs field terminal building is visible. the hatch to the boat’s cabin is open, over my shoulder.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

ok, we took the boat out finally, first time this year everything lined up (more or less) for it to happen. meet mavis! r. built her in the 80s, & everyone loves to take pictures of her.

still in the garage, on her trailer, mavis waits patiently for the wiring to be fixed on the trailer’s lights. she’s a plywood-bodied two-mast sailboat (though the masts are unshipped here) painted teal on the keel, a sort of bluey-greeny-black on the sides, and a butter-yellow on top.

at the harbor with masts shipped and the mainsail beginning to be run up. these are red sails (a red oxide rust type red), the sign of a “quirky” boat—which she is.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

unrelated: hunting thru old photos yesterday i discovered this, one of my very favorite pictures of myself:

my hair is voluminous and standing on end. my facial expression is slightly demented, yet happy. i look over the tops of my glasses at the camera, holding up a can of reese baby corn on the cob, as if it had some significance.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

elective affinities: volunteer purslane in my arugula bed

in a mossy-earthed round fabric raised bed, a leggy constellation of succulent teardrop-leafed purslane stretches companionably toward the arugula greens i actually planted there, as if to say, “we are salad!”

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

a few places shot with different black and white films over the past month-ish—typical of what/where i like to ramble and photograph

smooth sumac trunks in the foreground against a background of thickly foliated railway berm and the low area between the berm and the access road. a vertical sign reads “caution natural gas pipeline” on the other side of the sumacs.

low-angle shot of a rewilding parking lot surrounded by forest. this is the grass stage of the process. concrete “bumpers” that once formed the upper edges of the parking spots make a kind of lane receding into the distance.

extremely high-contrast shot of a hollow concrete structure like a tower, with young trees and shrubs growing out through window-like spaces in the side and along the top as though in a roof garden. vertically-oriented timestamp letters and numbers run from the top of the image down, in the center.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

lol it’ll never last* *because my follower count tends to fluctuate, if not wildly then reliably, & not always downwards

cropped screenshot of my follower count: “1k followers”.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

r. took this pic of me walking up a hill about 15 years ago. i like it because it’s unclear what/who this figure is, what’s going on in the shot. i think i remember that day as being very windy and cold.

a slightly sepia-toned photo of a figure in work clothes seen from behind and slightly below, apparently leaning forward on a grassy slope at the top of which seems to be a low structure. only one leg of the figure is visible and the arms are straight and mostly downward-pointing. it’s hard to tell if this is a person in motion or a scarecrow standing slightly off-kilter.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

i got one with a more conventional cat picture too

same design of badge as the one described in the earlier post, but featuring a drawing of a tabby cat glaring at the viewer.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

are you gonna tell them, or should i? 😹

a vintage badge reading “cats are my friends” with a rainbow arching from the f to the s, framing a drawing of a…raccoon?!

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

dating is super brutal. i never could handle it. it took me a really long time to realize that it (& the more typical/normative ways of connecting) was exactly the opposite of how i do relationships & make connections. coincidentally, i was just reading chapter 2 in JOYFUL MILITANCY & saw this:

cover of small paperback book
“Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times” by
Nick Montgomery and carla bergman

showing a gorgeous red linocut of a teasel head against a pleasing cream background with teal-blue wedge-shape vertically running on the right length of the cover.

paragraph from page 93 of JOYFUL MILITANCY, text reads: “Can friendship be revalued as a radical, transformative form of kinship? We are not sure, but we want to try.
Maybe the concept of friendship is already too colonized by liberalism and capitalism. Under neoliberalism, friendship is a banal affair of private preferences: we hang out, we share hobbies, we make small talk. We become friends with those who are already like us, and we keep each other comfortable rather than becoming different and more capable together. The algorithms of Facebook and other social networks guide us towards the refinement of our profiles, reducing friendship to the click of a button. This neoliberal friend is the alternative to hetero- and homonormative coupling: "just friends" implies a much weaker and insignificant bond than a lover could ever be. Under neoliberal friendship, we don't have each other's backs, and our lives aren't tangled up together. But these insipid tendencies do not mean that friendships are pointless, only that friendship is a terrain of struggle. Empire works to usher its subjects into flimsy relationships where nothing is at stake and to infuse intimacy with violence and domination. Perhaps friendship can be revalued in an expansive but specific way: friends, chosen family, and other kin intimately connected in a web of mutual support.”

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

…whose text is below. interesting how it bases its persuasive argument: “if you’re a serious comic collector, you should be into comic fandom.” already we have a gatekeeping mode, a definition of & an imperative toward a specific kind of activity & society that constitutes “fandom.”

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

interesting that the banner for the ad identifies the buyer’s guide as “a newspaper for comics fans” along with a photo of what a comics fan is meant to look like. (in 1975 i looked like a tiny white-haired elf with huge manga eyes—a comics *character*!) i guess i should find the rest of the ad…

banner from the ad clipping announcing A NEWSPAPER FOR COMICS FANS!

beneath the banner there’s a photo of a semi-smiling white guy/masculine person of anywhere between 14 and 25 years old wearing a rather cool heavy wide-wale corduroy jacket. the unisex bob haircut is very 1975.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

while collaging yesterday i ran into this; it’s part of an ad for comic book buyer’s guide subscriptions. it was in a 1975 comic book, & it struck me that the word “fandom” has a longer history than i thought. it’s so ubiquitous in my world i assumed it was recently coined.

black-bordered shadow-style red serif block caps asking “are you into comic fandom?” on an aged cutting from a comic book page. the caption i wrote says “1975 (or earlier?)”.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

unexpected forage from a beachside volunteer rose this morning🥀🟠

an interior of an olive-green bowl holding orange rose hips, one still with a small thorny stem and leaf.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

who got inside the window screen? katydid!

odd-angle, badly defined shot of a katydid on the inside of the ancient outside screen at the top edge of an upstairs window.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

attempted a bit of a woods visit, but “bit” was the operative word. we had a bug repellant failure & had to bail, but i did manage to get a few photos in. especially happy with this spooky instax wide mono shot.

black and white wide-format instant photo showibg a woodland scene: at first glance, a grove of straight-trunked trees receding from a grassy incline, wearing bright mist around their waists. in reality, this was duckweed floating on a flooded area, with the trees’ reflections making them seem to be fully above water.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

sonny now knows both of his names. “sonny” for official/serious, “moopsy” for casual/affectionate.

the deadly-cute moopsy creature from ST:LD. shown here as a furry white ball with little paws and big innocent eyes. if you know, you know.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

one of my favorite books, a quiet little joy. this cover design is perfect in every way!

a slim hardcover book with paper wrappings printed in yellow and black. the wrapping illustration is a recurring pattern of curled (“squiggled”) snakes and leaping frogs arranged such that frog front toes touch snake tails and other frog back toes. the frogs are on yellow rectangles and the snakes on plain white. the book’s title is BRITISH REPTILES AND AMPHIBIA.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

i’m not sure these are the committed display places for these wonderful pieces by @mxfrankduffy.bsky.social, but i don’t want to forget to post them. here’s “self portrait” on the bedroom wall, & “birth” in the bathroom.

a framed giclee print of a semi-abstract painting of an owl with a yellow sickle moon, tree-shapes and light. the painting balances warm colors on the owl’s head and beak, with cool blues, greens and the cool yellow of the moon.

a small square block print in black ink shows a skull through which a plant is growing, flanked by two crows. there are two stars above the crows and the plant.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

this storage system for sonny’s ping pong balls is perfectly logical in the context of our living space… (spidey doesn’t really have anything to do with it other than also needing to be not-underfoot)

a rather nice close view of a brass chandelier of the “fake candles” variety. the flame-shaped bulbs give off a warm light, and the dish-shaped bases of the two visible arms of the fixture hold white ping pong balls. a large spider-man action figure, attractively lit, seems to lean in to regard the foreground ping pong ball with interest.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

POETS BEWARE—USE CAUTION AND DO NOT APPROACH. if you encounter plums in a refrigerated environment, be advised that they may be engaged in poet-catching activity & therefore pose a significant risk to your personal safety. this risk increases with groups of plums. to report plums: 1-800-ATE-PLUM

closeup of two black plums on the green lid of a round plastic container, in a refrigerator. a red bag of supremo shredded chihuahua cheese is in the background.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

a bit early, i know—but more are on their way.

a small bouquet of fluffy orange marigolds and a sole velvety ruffled coxcomb of deep magenta. (a cherry-red toaster in need of a cleaning is in the background.)

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

swamp, with dork. (courtesy of r.)

pano shot showing a lush prairie-swamp area with bare trees sticking out of thick vegetation, some shrubs in the foreground. trees in the background behind the swamp area seem to echo the shapes of the thick clouds in the sky. to the right, i smile whimsically from behind dark glasses and a hoody over a brown cap, the strap of my camera around my neck.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

i so love the kono “rekorder” repurposed b&w sound film…that deeeeep daaaark black, super-detailed sharpness…whew⚡️ some frames have pre-exposed timestamps for added surprise & mystery

a very high-contrast textural and graphic extravaganza of a weathered concrete wall surface. it’s covered with graffiti, unexplained numbers that seem related to its original purpose, drips and smears of paint that may or may not be intentional—and a “no fishing” sign.

an odd high-contrast b&w shot of a small stalk of charming pale flowers (yellow, in life) with five round petals and dark centers. their leaves are somewhat star-shaped, and a string of white letters and numbers extends vertically in the center of the image.

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Jay Besemer @divinetailor.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

this tree has been sick for a while; i’ve been keeping an eye on it in case of just this situation. i’m not sure it will survive the loss of so much of its body, but these beings are so resourceful.

large tree-of-heaven with largely bare branches and visible tumors shown with the majority of its trunk and crown pulled down on the ground in front of it (by this image’s perspective).

the fallen trunk and crown of the tree in the previous image. the aurora-like area in the sky is just a matter of editing—the sky was overcast but not full of eerie lights!

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